For many, weight loss involves numerous sustainable changes to eating and exercise habits. It can take a long time, and there are often detours along the way. It can also be easier for some people than others.
Abundant memes and jokes riff on the ease in which men lose weight versus women. But is there any truth to this? Do men have an easier time losing weight than women?
“The answer — which we probably don’t want to hear — is, ‘Yes, it is easier for men,’” Lisa Martich, a dietitian specialist at UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, told TODAY.
There’s a dearth of research comparing differences between how men and women lose weight. Experts have a better understanding of how women lose weight because women are far more likely to seek help and work on weight loss more often than men.
“Seventy to 80% of people losing weight are women,” Colleen Tewksbury, Ph.D., a senior research investigator in the metabolic and bariatric surgery program at Penn Medicine, told TODAY. “We don’t have parity, we don’t have data to measure the differences.”
One difference between men and women when it comes to weight starts in the brain, a recent, small study found. It looked at men and women who were overweight or had obesity and found that their brains have different pathways from peers who weigh less. Researchers also that these differences affected different parts of the brain in men versus women.
“This has implications for the way we view food, the way we crave it and how that leads to altered eating patterns and, in turn, obesity,” Arpana Gupta, Ph.D., lead author of the study and director of the obesity program at the Godman-Luskin Microbiome Center at UCLA, told NBC News. “The brain patterns are part of the puzzle and show that the relationships with stress, environment, mood and early life experiences influence obesity and even that the gut has to be…
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